When I was a teenager, a favorite activity was to lose oneself in reading books, and in our spare time — mainly on weekends — we could sit for hours with the Lord of the Rings or the Foundation Trilogy.

I thought Harry Potter had reawakened the passion for reading in today’s generation, but apparently not.

According to an article in Fuel (11/07, p. 2), the average 15 to 19-year old reads an average of just 7 minutes — yes, only 7 minutes — per day on weekends.

Is literacy doomed? Are we raising a generation of ignorant kids who know much more about Gears of War than they do about World War II?

Does knowing things — and being able to read and understand a text — matter in today’s hyperlinked, Google-driven age?